Jutos iedvesmota kaut ko uzrakstīt. Latviešu valodā no manis nevar izspiest nekādas sakarīgas domas, tātad rakstīju angļu valodā.
Lūk, viena no svarīgākajām Amerikas 90. gadu mūzikas leģendām.
A Legend is Born
Chris Gaines - Emo pop icon, chart topper, leather God. If you weren’t following the underground emo music scene in the late 90s, you may not have ever heard of him or his Magnum Opus, The Life of Chris Gaines, or his hit song ‘Lost in You’.
https://youtu.be/tCPYt6BYOSI?si=skNhSP4A-dxXnE6I
Way before many of us were born, and all throughout the late 80s, the Australian-American music sensation was playing sold-out shows and topping the charts with albums like Straight Jacket, Fornucopia, Apostle and Triangle. But his stardom reached its peak in 1999, right at year’s end, when he dropped arguably the most vulnerable album of the decade.
The album, titled The Life of Chris Gaines, was a thoughtful reflection on life, soul, love and rock n roll, written following decades of overcoming adversity that would have sucked the soul out of any lesser man - the loss of his father to cancer in 1990, a life-altering car crash in 1992 that left Gaines with a broken body and a reconstructed face, a wildfire in ‘93 that burned his Malibu neighborhood to the ground, and a tumultuous relationship with his long-time record label.
Two months after the release of his deeply personal 1999 album, Chris Gaines was invited to perform on Saturday Night Live, introduced by award-winning country music star Garth Brooks. A clip of his performance is available here, dug up from the archives by super-fans and preserved for future generations:
Just a couple weeks after his SNL appearance, VH1 released a "Behind the Music” episode on Chris Gaines, detailing his journey from high school dropout to rock sensation:
VH1 Behind the Music - Chris Gaines
Soon enough, a movie with Chris Gaines in the leading role was in the works, titled The Lamb, set to the backdrop of his own music. TV appearances, a documentary, a starring role in a movie - Chris Gaines’ career was taking off toward new heights.
Behind all this success was Gaines’ lifelong determination to solidify himself as an integral part of music history. In his own words,
“You are forever competing with the future. So make your mark as strong as it can be, which makes it harder to wipe away.”
To those who look up to him, electrifying words from a master.
To those who remember him personally, a haunting unfulfilled prophecy. Because in 1999, just as quickly as he rose to international stardom, Chris Gaines disappeared from the public eye. Following his SNL performance, he was never seen or heard from again.
What happened to Chris Gaines? For what reason would a man disappear at the prime of his life?
His last album, a time capsule. The man himself, a ghost of the 20th century. Gone but never forgotten.
Truth is Stranger than Fiction
People who spend too much time on the internet may already know this, but Chris Gaines was actually American country singer Garth Brooks’ alter ego, created in the late 1990s as a way to experiment with music outside of his usual country music confines.
The VH1 ‘documentary’ mentioned is an elaborate mockumentary - every second of it is made up. Garth Brooks introducing Chris Gaines on his SNL appearance was introducing himself in a wig. Chris Gaines, in actuality, was this man in emo cosplay:
However, the movie The Lamb was real, with the album created partly as promotional material for the eventual movie. Production was, of course, cancelled when the Chris Gaines experiment ended in failure.
Chris Gaines ‘disappeared’ in 1999, and Garth Brooks took a long break from country music shortly after to focus on family. He doesn’t like to talk about the Chris Gaines period of his life, but the rest of the music world does.
Here is Garth Brooks before the turn - Not just a country singer, but the most well-known and beloved country singer of the 90s:
Friends in Low Places - Grath Brooks (Live Ireland 1998)
Identitāte
Kas motivē cilvēku izveidot alter ego? Cik identitātes var būt vienam cilvēkam? Kura no tām ir īstā? Ja publikai nebūtu bijusi tik negatīva reakcija uz viņa eksperimentu, vai Garth Brooks būtu turpinājis radīt mūziku ārpus viņa pieņemtās žanras? Vai nevarētu būt tā, ka īstais alter ego patiesībā ir 'country music sensation Garth Brooks’, un Chris Gaines ir viņa patiesais raksturs, kuru jau 63 gadus slēpj zem sāpīgi smagas kovboju cepures?
Viņa stāsts man atgādina Andy Kaufman un viņa alter ego Tony Clifton. Vienīgi, Andy gadījumā domāju, ka abi tēli bija sava veida alter ego, un viņu patiesībā neviens nepazina.
Chris Gaines turpina ietekmēt popkultūru, jo Garth Brooks vēlas aizmirst šo ekperimentālo periodu savā dzīvē, bet tauta gan nē. Kostīmi, pasākumi, un kaverdziesmas palīdz saglabāt šo svarīgo mirkli popkultūras vēsturē.
Runājam par mūzikas pasauli, tātad beigsim arī ar dziesmu. Šeit ir fantastisks video, kas visu savelk kopā - Childish Gambino (Donalda Glavera alter ego) dzied kaverversiju Chris Gaines (Garth Brooks alter ego) dziesmai ‘Lost in You’.
Es neesmu nekāda baigā rakstniece, bet šis stāsts mani facinē un gribēju ar to kaut kur padaīties. Ja brīžiem sāku smieties, kad nekas smieklīgs nav noticis, gan jau tajā brīdī pēkšņi atcerējos, ka eksistē VH1 mockumentary filma par Chris Gaines dzīvi, kura ir ļoti smieklīga, kad saproti, ka tā nav īsta.
Ir daudz interesanti video un raksti internetā kas visu šo Garth Brooks/Chris Gaines situāciju paskaidro padziļināti, kā arī podkāsts veltīts tēmai.
Ceru, ka šis kādu iedvesmos izveidot alter ego un experimentēt ar emo matiem. Nekad nav par agru. Nekad nav par vēlu.
